Columbia. . . support recognition of a privilege for reporters' confidential " sources. But what Tatel gave Judith Miller with one hand he took away with the other. He stressed that the privilege "cannot be absolute," and, based on the evidence in her case, she was not enti- tled to its protection. The leak of Val- erie Plame's name was a "serious mat- ter," he argued, but the disclosure "had marginal news value. . . . Considering the gravity of the suspected crime and the low value of the leaked informa- tion, no privilege bars the subpoenas." But T atel did cite several examples of leaks that might justify a reporter in protecting his sources. One was a 2004 story in the Washington Post about a "budget controversy regarding a super- secret satellite program." The story was co-written by Walter Pincus. P incus joined the staff of the Post in 1966, and ten years ago he turned sixty-three, an age at which many peo- ple start contemplating retirement. "But both my parents lived to be ninety-five, and I thought I needed something to do when I turned seventy, so I went to law school part time," he told me. It took him six years, but in 2001 he grad- uated from the Georgetown University Law Center. Pincus has never practiced law, however, and he remains an inves- tigative reporter in the national-security field. He has a full head of snow-white hair, bushy eyebrows, and a slightly dis- tracted air that is common to investi- gative reporters. When he bought me a soda in the Post's decrepit employee cafeteria, coffee from a broken ma- chine was spewing onto the floor, but he stepped around the torrent without comment. When we sat down, I asked him why he had never practiced law. He replied that Katharine Graham, the longtime chairman of the Washington Post Company, had been a close friend. "She died right before the bar exam," he said. "I was with her and her family. I didn't study, so I failed." Pincus has an idiosyncratic view of his legal predicament. He's skeptical of the notion that subpoenas to jour- nalists necessarily have a chilling effect on sources. "My sources are not dry- ing up," he told me. "It hasn't hurt me. There is a misconception generally ...............- -........ .- .--- -. _.__. -_.. _. _.. - .......... .""""-........-__r...............'.... w -- ....'....,........ .............--.,........ ...- .......,.. f' I \1 \ ." _ ,- .....-'._ -'_ -,. I 'I' "OS .-J . J t r II I , , I .l \ \ 1 ) \ f ) d ((;)1 : L\ -II \ r ' - 9 6J \ ! ! ;) . {( 1. t j 4 . . ( ; i ... ( I 4 0: ' ? . "We beat the spread!" . about sources. When you talk about a leak, you are usually not talking about a single person handing you something. You get a little bit here, and a little bit there, and often you can't even identify the single source of a story. Anyway, most of my confidential sources are people I know extremely well. I've built up these sources over the years. Report- ing in the intelligence field is talking to a lot of people. The idea that sources are people who come to you over the transom is not true in my case. And those people who come to you over the transom are often trying to plant things that turn out not to be true. My expe- rience is that most sources you don't know personally will give you bad in- formation." Pincus believes that reporters are facing more subpoenas as much be- cause of bad habits that the profes- sion has acquired as because of an un- sympathetic public and judiciary. He thinks, for example, that reporters are often too ready to grant confidentiality to their sources. "The whole subject of confidential sources has gotten mixed up between gossip, opinion, and fact," . he said. "I cover intelligence, and peo- ple are really risking their jobs and per- haps their freedom by telling me in- formation that they know is classified. That's very different from people going on background to tell you that Britney Spears is pregnant, or that Hillary Clin- ton shouldn't run for the Senate because it will hurt her chances of running for President. Just because someone asks for confidentiality doesn't mean you have to give it to them. And just because someone tells you something, even if it' s true, doesn't mean you have to put it in th " e paper. Two days before Novak revealed Valerie Plame's name in his column, an Administration official had discussed her husband's trip to Mrica with Pincus. The official, to whom Pincus promised confidentiality, said that Wilson's trip had been arranged by his wife. (The official told Pincus that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. but did not iden- tify her by name.) Miller chose to go to jail rather than coöperate with Fitzgerald; Pincus took a different tack. Rather than defy the prosecutors, as Miller did for so long, THE NEW YORK.ER, JANUARY 16, 2006 35